Meet Our Academy Staff

The Club is delighted to have appointed Howard Jones, current Bucks County Coach, as a key member of our new Youth  Academy. As a former professional football coach, he comes to us with having gained over 30 years of experience in Academy & Club Management/Coaching and National Association coaching. He was a former Staff Coach with the Football Association of South Africa tutoring former players on the techniques of coaching and Head of Soccer at Pretoria University. Howard also has extensive experience in sports marketing and together with co-founder Richard Potton, secured our partnership with Taylor Bowls.  After returning to the UK he stepped back from active sports coaching to take up a corporate management role until his retirement in 2010 following which, he returned to bowls, a sport he initially played in South Africa. However, realising how much he missed the coaching environment, he decided to add bowls coaching qualifications to his already extensive experience and as a fellow co- founder of our Academy, he is now introducing ground breaking training programmes based on drills & performance recording systems, into our sport. To quote Howard “my aim is to have our Taylor/NPBC Academy recognised as a Centre of Excellence within the bowls fraternity and produce future quality young players for the senior ranks, both at County and National level”. “Delivery on this would be a just reward for NPBC’s innovative and supportive management committee”. During 2019 his experience and work has been recognised by Buckinghamshire Bowls Association in appointing Howard as their County Coach and in 2021/22 he was awarded Coach Bowls prestigious “2021 Coach of the year award”, which was followed by Bowls England’s own “2021 Coach of the Year award”.

Valerie joined the Bowls Club in 2018 as a novice bowler, but like the Academy members, she’s very keen to improve her game.  Valerie’s lived in Newport Pagnell for over 35 years and has visited family here for even longer. Having retired (early!) from full-time work, Valerie now supports various organisations in addition to the Academy – including a sea rowing club, a Dorset museum, the Parks Trust and a local pet supplies shop. She’s also the club’s Assistant Secretary and sits on its Social Committee. Her role within the Academy is to, hopefully, keep us all organised. In her spare time, Valerie enjoys eating chocolate and drinking white wine (never together) and of course playing bowls. But the real loves of her life are her two border collies, who you’ll see alongside her at some of our games.

 

Safeguarding and Welfare are taken very seriously by NPBC, so we are more than pleased to have on board Frances [Fran] Llewellyn, a retired Advanced Nurse Practitioner. Fran was working “frontline” up until she retired in Minor illness/ minor injuries. Her Key work areas have been in: safeguarding/ Vulnerable adults/Learning disability/ family health/ women’s health and sexual health. She has gained further experience over the years with long term conditions, which include working with people with all lung complaints and diabetes.
Fran has lived in Newport Pagnell since 1973 ( She now believes to have achieved the accolade “I’m a local! )
Fran loves travelling, learning and exploring about our global “ village”, hence her dislike of beach holidays and she has a wonderful love of animals in their natural world.